Government would this year establish a consolidated telephone clearing house to monitor all in-bound international calls in order to check fraud in the operations of the international gateway system.
Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, the Minister of Communications, who disclosed this at the inauguration of an 11-member ministerial advisory board, said: "The National Communications Authority has been legally empowered to effectively collaborate with telecom operators to work towards the development of a reliable telephone clearing house database."
He said the system would help control "gray routes" and thereby enhance both operator and revenue generation potential in the domestic and international telecom market place.
The minister noted that if the system was effectively implemented, it would stem fraud in the pricing of in-bound international calls, particularly in cases where some international calls terminate as local calls and therefore accrue less charge.
"We estimate that if this is done well government will generate an additional US$50 million per annum from in-bound international calls and the telecom operators will also generate additional funds," he said.
Mr. Iddrisu said the government was committed to ensuring telecom consumer protection by pursuing mobile number portability (MNP) to give consumers choice in the face of poor quality service from some networks.
"It is for instance unacceptable for subscribers to have faced grave network challenges and call drops during the Christmas season," he said.
He urged telecom operators to pursue voluntary co-location in order to improve quality of service, adding that there was need for intensive public education on the link between telecom masts and quality of service.
Mr. Iddrisu said government had signed a Public Private Partnership (PPP) agreement with GCNet to undertake a nationwide automation of the revenue agencies.
He some of the other policy initiative that would take off this year included e-Ghana project, national internet registry, broadband link between all 550 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), establishment of electronic data centre and the establishment of modern information centres in four regions - Volta, Northern, Upper East and Upper West.
The Minister also said plans were afoot for a number of supplementary legislations including data protection/privacy, cyber security legislation, intellectual property legislation, and e-transaction regulations.
Earlier, he had told the GNA that the consolidated system would ensure a uniform charge per minute for all international in-bound calls, which would be pegged at US$0.19 per minute.
Mr. Iddrisu said the system would not affect end users in any way so there was no cause for alarm among subscribers, adding that international roaming systems of the various telecom operators would also not be affected by the system.
The members of the advisory board are Commander P. M. G. Griffiths (Rtd), Co-Chairman, Mr. Gideon Quarcoo, Deputy Minister of Communication, Mr. Kwaku Ofosu-Darkwa, Chief Director, MOC, Mr. Bernard Forson, Director-General, NCA, Dr. Samuel Somuah, Director General, NITA and Mr. Micheal M. Tanu, Director General, GMet.
The others are Ms. Dorothy Gordon, Director-General, Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence (KACE), Mr. Leslie Tamakloe, Ghana Internet Service Providers Association (GISPA) Representative, Mr. Philip Sowah, Managing Director, Zain and representative of telecom operators, and Mr. K. A. Hayford, Representative of Ghana Association of Software and IT Services Companies (GASSCOM).
Commander Griffiths assured the minister that the board would allow party manifesto to inform their policy advice to the ministry.